“LA WRENCE ”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 274, 9 February 1928, Page 13

“LA WRENCE ”

SENSATIONAL ATTACK 1 ON LEADER OF THE | ARABS I. L “LITTLE TRACE OF MODESTY” A sensational attack on Colonel T. E. Lawrence, the “Uncrowned King of the Desert” (who is at present serving in the ranks in the Royal Air Force in India), is made in the current issue of the “Central Asian Journal,” by “A.T.W.”—initials which reveal the author to be a highly-placed authority on Eastern affairs, who has spent more than half his life in the East. “A.T.W.” is reviewing two books in the journal, “Revolt in the Desert,” by “T. E. Lawrence,” and “With Lawrence in Arabia,” by Lowell-Thomas. The attack opens: Those who study this book as a human document will find little trace therein of the modesty claimed as an outstanding virtue of “T. E. Lawrence ' (the initials are his own) by the publisher, and by the innumerable articles of that prince of .Press agents, LowellThomas, with its 16 posed photographs of its hero in almost as many costumes, and if the reader’s curiosity carries him further to study Lawrence’s published writings in post-war years in English and American journals and magazines, they will wonder the more at the genesis of this particular myth, for the book is permeated by a pardonable vanity. Languid Fires Colonel Lawrence in his book describes how he went to Viscount Allenby to ask for a “fund of two hundred thousand sovereigns to convince and control his converts.’ This is “A.T.W.’s” comment: The Official History, when it appears, will perhaps tell the world how many hundred thousand sovereigns were needed monthly to feed the languid fires of Arab nationalism. . . . We do know, however, that the cessation of the golden stream that flowed freely from the British Treasury to the Sharifian family, and thence, much less freely, to the Bedawin, was the signal for the break-up of the Arab revolt, so painfully fostered. “A.T.W.” then deals with the fortunes of the Sharifian family, and of King Faisal, of Iraq, writes: Faisal survived, thanks to the grace of God, his own abilities, the support of the Royal Air Force, and to the efforts in Iraq of a corps of British advisers. Anglo-French Relations On Lawrence’s work in connection with Anglo-French relations in the Middle East, “A.T.W.” comments: For the estrangement of AngloFrench relations in the Middle East . . . and for the present deplorable situation in Syria, Lawrence is, more than any other single person, responsible. Silsewhere, Lawrence’s critic ac-

cuses his victim in reference to Indian troops, of a “complete lack of understanding combined with an intellectual snobbery which would be remarkable were it not fairly common among those Arabian experts whose knowledge of the East is confined to Western Arabia.’ “As a contribution to history,” continues “A.T.W.,” “this book is of little worth. It is not without significance that Ibn Saud. who to-day holds almost all Arabia in fee, is barely mentioned in its pages.” Policy of Disaster The attack concludes with comments on the famous Arab Bureau, of which Colonel Lawrence was the head in Cairo. “It died unregretted in 1920.” writes the critic, ‘having helped to induce his Majesty’s Government to adopt a policy which brought disaster to the people of Syria, disillusionment to the Arabs of Palestine, and ruin to the Hejaz.” “A.T.W.’s” description of the bureau ends thus: Its members and protagonists, amply mirrored in these pages, appear to' constitute a mutual admiration society —almost a cult —of which Lawrence is the chief priest and Lowell-Thomas the Press agent. But a prophet is not without honour save in his own country, and outside Arabia the cult is assured of a long and (if the price current of the limited edition in the U.S.A. is any indication) a profitable life. The journal in which the attack is published is the organ of the Central Asian Society.